From miscommunications to misalignments, Lions defense unravels without Slay

CHICAGO -- As a receiver sped toward them, Quandre Diggs and De'Shawn Shead stepped up into the same zone. Neither took Anthony Miller, and nobody could chase him down after he caught the pass over their heads and scooted 55 yards down the right sideline for a touchdown.

Shead said it was his fault, that Diggs pointed him to the receiver and he didn't pick it up. Either way, a huge play resulted, the kind that could negate anything else good the Lions did on the drive.

With a decent second-half push by the offense, perhaps one busted play wouldn't have doomed Detroit in Chicago on Sunday. Instead, a miscue of alignment, communication or assignment plagued the Lions again and again in a 34-22 loss to the Bears at Soldier Field.

Detroit has had defensive issues all season long, struggling to limit gashing runs or make plays in coverage. But Sunday brought out a sort of haphazard play that was like a new boiling point for the unit.

The Lions had to burn a timeout when Glover Quin found himself isolated on a receiver to the wide side of the field. Defenders ran into each other at least two times in the process of trying to chase down Bears players. Even Damon "Snacks" Harrison, one of the few lone bright spots on the team the past three weeks, found himself too far out of position.

The Lions actually handled the run well for the most part, shutting the Bears down to 54 yards on 22 carries with a long of nine, though those plays at the goal line were back-breaking.

It was trying to defend a healthy and deep passing game without injured Pro Bowl cornerback Darius Slay that sent so much into disarray. Shead got the start opposite Nevin Lawson as the team reduced Teez Tabor's role to almost nothing, but both were stuck playing catch-up against a healthy and loaded Bears receiving corps.

Perhaps no play illustrated the odds the Lions were fighting on Sunday than a 3rd-and-15 the Bears lined up for at the very edge of field-goal range. Detroit came out in a dime package but played cornerbacks up in the faces of receivers without safety help. Trubisky spotted Allen Robinson alone on Shead on the right sidelines, and they ran a simple go-route that left Shead trying to race up to find Robinson in the end zone, which he could not.

The Lions normally would have Slay on Robinson, and he has the recovery speed to defend inside and get back to make a play on the ball. Without him, Robinson hauled in six passes for 133 yards and two touchdowns and Trubisky had what he and coach Matt Nagy called his best game as a pro with 355 yards and three touchdown passes.

"Me, just getting out there and trying to get the feel and just being able to get on the same page, practice on the same page, sometimes that takes a little bit of time -- time, practice and execution," Shead said.

Teams have to play without star players sometimes. Chicago played the past two weeks without All-Pro defensive end Khalil Mack and still shut the Jets and Bills down to 19 total points.

Detroit has issues that the return of one player might not solve either.

Matt Patricia has lately hammered home the idea of getting back to the basics, the fundamentals of football play that became the focus of training camp but fell to the wayside some in the process of coming up with game-specific game plans. It sounds simple, but perhaps in getting back to the foundation of everything, the Lions can locate the points where the plan starts to unravel.

"We know our assignments. We know what we are doing," Jarrad Davis said. "The excuse why it's happening, that's where the confusion comes.